Trivial Town

There was peace in the Town of Flower Down. There were some, who, young and bright eyed, had reached adulthood without so much as setting eyes upon a sword.
The Frog on the Log was considered by most to be a fool. Jokes at his expense were traded in the playground. Mothers would tut past him as they bought vegetables in the market square. A number of anti- social orders had been taken out against him, but, thanks to the interfering antics of animal rights groups, his scaremongering had been allowed to continue.
The Frog had placed his very own log in the centre of the town square, between the Daffy Café and the Hubbub Pub, by the Mountain Fountain, just opposite the ramp where the town tramp used to beg. Every morning he would climb upon his log as the sun’s splendid pastels teased the distant sky. Those who lived nearby, and those who lived afar, were woken by his warnings.
‘It’s that frog on his stupid log,’ they would groan, shuffling beneath their bed sheets.
They would sing in the shower whilst tales of impending doom vibrated through the blinds. They would offer each other toast whilst a call to arms pressed against the window. They would spread marmalade whilst the certainty of war was declared and pronounced immediate. In a way, they loved the frog. He was like an old, familiar ache. And besides, he saved getting an alarm clock.
The Town of Flower Down was governed by an Ogre. Legends told of a time when their fierce ogre king had waged war against the barbarians of the Vulgar Valley. Yet these legends were hard to believe when the ruler appeared in the news. He was most often photographed sat cross-legged with his eyes closed. He was known as the Ogre who does Yoga.
After the bloodshed of his battles, the Ogre expressed the need for inner peace. He fortified his fortress with flowers and spent his days searching for wisdom and love. He chanted, he meditated, he effortlessly lifted his lithe legs and folded them around his neck. He rescued injured animals and nursed them to health. When the fairy (if you are wondering which fairy it was, she was called Mary, and she was, for the record, rather hairy) crept up to his window that morning, he was lovingly feeding a wounded water rat.
The fairy almost tripped on her locks as she paced upon the windowsill, trying to gather the courage, the courage to disturb the ogre and tell him that war was on its way. While she was thinking, she fell, and found herself on the ogre’s floor, buried beneath her hair, fighting for vision.
‘May I suggest a trim, perhaps?’ asked the Ogre, gently lifting aside the mass of curls.
‘Don’t be so silly,’ snapped the fairy, ‘snip away a strand and it will sprout to three times the length. That is my curse. That is what the Sinister Sorceress has done to me.’
‘The Sinister Sorceress?’ The Ogre absorbed the words. ‘Have you been out in the Vulgar Valleys?’
‘Yes,’ the Fairy knew she had to tell all now, ‘that frog convinced me that trouble was afoot. I didn’t believe him at first, but well, he’s right. Their armies are going to attack. They resent us our rhymes, they’re calling them crimes, they publicly curse our inspired verse…’
‘But what is wrong with our rhymes? Why would anyone start a war for such a ridiculous reason?’ The confused words caressed Mary’s abundant locks, yet when the muffled question reached the fairy’s ears it sent her into an agitated frenzy.
‘This is serious,’ she screamed, ‘they think they’re above us. They think we’re barbarians. Their Pompous Prince declared we know no alliteration. His Smarmy Sidekick said we need civilisation. They believe our ignorance is a threat to the nation and insist that we need re- education.’
‘Well, you still find time to make everything rhyme,’ teased the ruler.
‘I’m trying to preserve our way of life!’
‘You’re causing yourself a good deal of strife!’ The Fairy was almost tearing her hair out, and though that might have been a good thing, the Ogre could tease her no longer. ‘It’s Ok Mary,’ he said soothingly, ‘I am listening. Now you know I trust you, but you can be a little over excitable at times. Are you absolutely sure they’re going to attack?’
‘Yes,’ the ogre imagined that somewhere beneath the mini mountain of hair, a fairy’s head was nodding with conviction.
‘Well, in that case,’ the Ogre leant his head to one side in a thoughtful manner, ‘you know I don’t normally approve of violence but perhaps it would be appropriate to mobilise our armies. Purely as a precautionary measure, of course.’
‘We don’t have any armies!’ screamed the Fairy.
‘Ah,’ said the Ogre.
As silence squatted uncomfortably between the pair, an arrow sped through the open window. Its ferocity was such that the spring air flinched at its presence. The arrow made for the bookshelf and, with a satisfied thud, planted itself in ‘The Path of Peace- an Ogre’s Guide.’
‘Ah,’ said the Ogre.

*
The Goat on the Moat was sleeping peacefully. He had originally been appointed as the town guard, but it was widely accepted that his title was a silly formality. The main reason the goat sat on the moat was because he liked the view. And it was a good way of avoiding that pesky frog.
Imagine the goat’s surprise when he was woken by the sound of battle drums. Well, not just the sound of drums. The Tabla Tigers walked on both sides of the great army. They stood up on their hind legs, drumming with their front paws. The Terrible Trumpeters and the Horrible Horns led the procession. Behind them were the red eyed Barging Buffalo, whose heavy hooves thudded against the ground. Further back, Zig – Zag Zebras crossed each others paths, as Acrobatic Archers somersaulted upon their backs. And above even the most acrobatic of the archers, the Sinister Sorceress stood in the sky, marching mystically upon the air.
The Cheeky Chipmunks were everywhere, stealing the archer’s arrows, fighting over ladies underwear, staging jousting matches upon the Buffalo. Even the Orderly Ostrich, whose sharp scissor legs moved in time with the drums, didn’t try to control the chipmunks. The Ostrich controlled everything else, though. As he marched at the head of the army, his beak sharp eyes were poised to pick out any buffalo stepping out of line or any zebra that stepped into line.
Both the Pompous Prince and his Smarmy Sidekick were mounted upon the finest bred Yodelling Yaks. The Pompous Prince naturally demanded the finest of everything, yet he did not wager that when it comes to a Yodelling Yak, ‘fine bred’ translates as ‘yodels louder.’ Their singing screeched between screaming, high pitched falsetto and deep, downbeat drones. And as the army drew closer, the goat began to fear that this screeching alone would render the town helpless. While the goat was panicking, the archers launched into attacking acrobatics, and the twang of bows filled the air,
sky
the whistling
into as they
sped fell onto the
a host of arrows Town of Flower Down.
*
The frog looked more surprised than anyone. Arrows thwacked into his wooden stage, narrowly avoiding his dancing legs, miraculously missing the ample target of his green and gluttonous midriff. But the ferocity and frequency of the onslaught was such that the log began to tilt and roll with the impact. Before he knew it, the frog had lost his balance and fallen over backwards, landing headfirst in a bucket of purple paint.
Needless to say, this torrent of arrows caused quite a commotion. The Bull with the Drill had been humming whilst working on the rooftop of the Daffy Café. His carefree outlook changed sharply when an arrow twanged into his rear. He stumbled on his hind legs, crying out in pain and tumbling to the ground.
The Nurse with the Purse had been perusing the special offers at the market. She had just spotted an especially tempting dress and simply could not resist it. She opened her purse, and was holding out a sizeable portion of the hospital medicine budget when an arrow shot through the notes, ripping them from her hand and landing in the dress. The dress was ruined completely. Disappointed, the nurse was examining another garment when an arrow landed in that, too. She decided to take refuge in the Daffy Café.
The Cook with the Hook was singing in his kitchen, piercing potatoes with his curved metal hand. At first he thought the thuds on the roof were just the Bull with the Drill at work. But the thudding got more frequent and intense. He considered for a moment that it might be rain, but it was so much louder. And what were those howling sounds coming from outside? He had to investigate.
The cook was astounded at the scene. In the market square, arrows were falling like torrential hail. Some of the shoppers had been hit; many were sheltering in stalls, desperately using plates, doormats or toilet seats as shields. The bull staggered past the window, howling and trying to reach for the arrow in his rear. A bucket with stumpy purple legs tried to enter the café, but walked into the glass door and fell helplessly onto its steel sides. The nurse swiftly sidestepped the bucket and, entering the café, removed her purse.
‘What’s the soup of the day?’ she asked.
The cook could honestly not remember whether it was Potato and Leek or Tomato and Basil. For some reason, he was actually considering the question when the most horrible sounds began to fill the air, merging with the distressed howls from the market square and the sizzling of sausages from the kitchen.
There was the drumbeat. That was constant. A kind of steady rhythm to accompany the cacophony of sound. There was what sounded like trumpets or horns, the thick, tuneless vibrations shook against walls and ached against eardrums. There was a kind of dull heavy thud that seemed to come up from the ground. And, more and more, there was a sound which was impossible to ignore.
It was agony, listening to that sound. It seemed to vibrate effortlessly through your skin and make your flesh curl in distaste. The Yaks changed from shrieking opera to low pitched Pavarotti in a split second. In an agonising instant.
Whether they sang high or whether they sang low, they sang very, very badly.
*
It should be remembered that the Yodelling Yaks were also causing discomfort amongst the attacking forces. There were times when the Barging Buffalo were tempted to turn and barge in the opposite direction. There were times when the Acrobatic Archers were tempted to shoot those shaggy cows into silence. There were times when the Pompous Prince was tempted to run away.
Yet none of this happened. The army, under the harsh discipline of the Orderly Ostrich, had been well – trained. The Barging Buffalo had seen what had happened to rebels, the Acrobatic Archers knew of the punishment for treason. The Pompous Prince, for his part, was actually extremely keen on running away. He was climbing down from his Yak when the Smarmy Sidekick pointed out that he was in the safest possible place.
‘No one’s going to come near us while they’re singing,’ said the Smarmy Sidekick.
The Pompous Prince saw that this was true.
The effect of the noise upon the attacking armies, then, was simply to make them angrier. They had to take their anger out on something, and there was a whole town sitting just in front of them. It was exactly the right size; small enough to be easy work but big enough to provide satisfaction. Best of all, it was completely and utterly defenceless.
*
The Ogre had come out of his fortress, he wielded an ancient axe while the Fairy carried a rusty sword. The bull , the goat, the frog and the cook came out of hiding , eager to do what they could to defend their town. The nurse was reading medicine books for the first time, keen to help if she could.
In a story with a happy ending, perhaps the people and animals of the town would have beaten the invaders from the valleys. Perhaps there would have been a love story and a fairytale wedding. Perhaps the ogre would have been given an award for valour and for peacekeeping, and perhaps the Pompous Prince would have been thrown into jail.
None of this was to be.
The Vulgar Valleys had a vast trained army with a huge herd of buffalo and zebra, the most accurate and airborne archers ever seen, and Yaks that made the worst singer in town sound like a golden voiced queen. They were controlled by the most disciplined Ostrich in the land and had an almighty Sorceress who walked on air above them. The Town of Flower Down did not have an army. A yoga practising ogre, a rusty sword, a hairy fairy, a goat, a trapped frog, an untrained nurse and an angry bull were not going to change a thing.
There were hoots of laughter as people and animals poured out onto the streets. The Buffalo barged the people. The Zebras just confused them. The Archers swung on top of rooftops picking victims out with glee. The Bull, charging at Buffalo with his Drill, was seen to be a threat, and the archers finished him in the time it takes to choose an arrow. The frog’s bucket saved his life; arrows bounced off it as he ran randomly, like a badly driven radio -controlled car.
The Buffalo charged as the Zebras zigged. The town’s fighting forces were confused and zagged into a dead end. The Nurse, the Cook, the Ogre, the Goat and the Fairy stood amongst what was left of their people. Though the remains of determination were hanging in the air, most were beginning to lower the spoons or spatulas they had gathered as weapons. They were beaten.
Chipmunks tied the people’s hands. A bolt of purple lightning hit the Ogre’s axe and turned it into a yoga mat. The Fairy’s sword was transformed into a set of hair clippers. Black rain fell on the town of Flower Down as the prisoners were marched into the quiet, peaceful prisons. The Cheeky Chipmunks chortled as they locked the cells. The Orderly Ostrich marched up and down. Shadows of Acrobatic Archers somersaulted on the walls.
The Pompous Prince, who had been resting outside the gates, straightened his spine and lifted his chin. His yak yodelled lower, sensing victory. Followed smarmily by his sidekick, they rode into the market square. He drove a triumphant flag into the peak of the Mountain Fountain:
‘Welcome to Trivial Town. A Province of the Vulgar Valleys.’
*
One man remained free. Well, one frog remained free. And I suppose there’s a limit to freedom when you’re trapped inside a dark bucket and all you can taste or smell is paint. Nonetheless, the frog was not in prison.
Having predicted the invasion for years, the frog had made some preparations. Not many, but some. He’d figured that the first thing he would need was disguise. That, and protection. It was for this reason that he always had a bucket by his log; it would be perfect to hide under and protect him from arrows. He had tried to place the bucket there without paint, yet that had always attracted suspicion. Placing a little paint inside the bucket prevented people from interfering, but caused obvious practical problems when it actually came to falling in the bucket.
The frogs’ frantic running about the square during the brief attempt at battle had been a kind of distraction technique. When he heard the sighs of resignation and the fastening of rope about captive’s hands he had the sense to lie low and just be a bucket. A simple, innocent bucket.
What was bothering the frog now was why his bucket was dark. So intensely dark. For the frog had drilled tiny holes in his bucket so that he would be able to see. He understood that he might have fallen at the wrong angle, but even if the holes were at the other side, just a glint of light should be peeping through.
There was nothing. No light at all. The frog sat down in bucket mode. He heard rain pelting down outside and his misery increased. It was dark. So very, very dark.
A glint of light appeared in front of him, though he had no idea where from. The smell of rain and thunder seemed closer and fresher. The glint of light got bigger. Another glint appeared, just next to it.
They’d been covered in paint! The holes had been covered in paint!! The rain was washing the paint away!!! The frog almost forgot he was a bucket and leapt into the air. Now he had a chance to turn things around.
His heightened spirits fell when he started to see some of the Prince’s changes. The mountain shape of the fountain had been taken and replaced with a small silver model surrounded by dandelions and roses.
‘Welcome to the Flower Fountain,’ read the sign.
The Hubbub Pub had gone. In its place was a clean, stark building. A new sign was being lifted above the doors.
‘The Princes Pub.’
*
The bucket was in a remote part of town. Down an alley where few ever ventured. He used his purple feet to pull up the metal mesh from a drain hole. Slowly, he lowered himself down. He was going underground.
The Dwarf who could Morph was sitting in an old and dusty office. His grey beard had grown longer and his face had grown older. When he saw the bucket with the purple feet, he shook his head with amused disbelief.
‘Are you under there, froggy?’ he asked.
The Dwarf lifted the bucket up, gently pulling at the frogs’ feet at the same time. The frog made pained noises which squeaked against the side of the bucket. But the dwarf maintained a firm grip. Soon, with a squelch, the frog came free, speckling the office with purple paint as he did so.
As the purple frog told the tale, the dwarf listened with sympathy but without surprise. This, after all, was what they had both been predicting for some time. After a lengthy pause the dwarf pulled out pile after pile of dusty paper. The flavour of old, intellectual powder seemed to fill the air.
‘I have discovered one thing, one thing which may be to our advantage,’ said the dwarf solemnly. ‘It is to do with the history of the Pompous Prince, oh, please… don’t sit on the chair, you’ll get paint everywhere… erm… here’s a newspaper… I’ll spread it out here, you can stand on that.’
‘Sorry,’ said the frog.
‘Now, it would appear,’ the dwarf paused, because dwarves always pause for an infuriating length of time before saying anything interesting, ‘it would appear,’ he paused again, ‘that the Pompous Prince used to be a citizen of the Town of Flower Down.’ The dwarf looked at his bookshelf for some time, ‘He used to be,’ the dwarf stroked his beard, ‘he used to be the Tramp on the Ramp.’
‘The Tramp on the Ramp!?’
‘The Tramp on the Ramp.’
‘The Tramp on the Ramp!?!?’
‘The Tramp on the Ramp.’
‘The Tramp on the Ramp!?!?!?’
‘The Tramp,’ the dwarf paused, ‘as you say, on the Ramp.’
‘Well, I wondered where he’d got to.’
The dwarf smiled wryly.
‘The Tramp,’ the dwarf explained, ‘grew tired of his life here. He decided to become a wanderer, to explore and see what he could find. On his journey to the Vulgar Valleys he heard rumours they were looking for the heir to the throne. They were looking for the son of the Kind King, who had travelled when young and never returned. Now, according to the stories, he would look almost forty, with a dark, rugged face from years of hardship.
The tramp, of course was born in The Town of Flower Down. But he realised that he matched the description perfectly. As his bare feet marched up to the Kind King’s temple he was welcomed as his long lost son and a huge banquet was prepared. The King was old, though, and he entrusted rule to his much loved son, or at least he thought he did.
The tramp had so much bitterness against the Town of Flower Down. He longed to rule over the people who had walked past him in the streets for so long. He longed to be richer than them, richer than those who had bought jewellery while he ached for bread.’
‘So he turned the people against us,’ said the frog.
‘That’s right. He launched a huge campaign to show that our way of life was inferior. That our rhymes were wrong. Now as you say, they’ve taken over and forced their way of life on us. You’ll never be allowed on a log again; they’ll probably give you a ferret or a frisbee or put you in a fridge.’
The frog nodded, realising that this was the truth.
‘However, all is not lost,’ the dwarf continued, ‘I can still morph as well as I always could. If I can get to that tramp. If I can just get to that so called Prince, that pompous beggar, then I’ll blackmail him into leaving us. I’ll set us free again.’
‘How will we get to him?’
‘These people are usually quite predictable,’ the dwarf smiled, leaning over the dusty parchment of the town plan. ‘I’d imagine they’ll have gone straight for the Ogre’s fortress, probably having a huge banquet in the dining halls. We should have no problem finding them.’
‘We?’ croaked the frog.
‘Oh yes,’ replied the dwarf cheerfully, ‘you didn’t think I’d leave you here all by yourself. But I think we’ll have to wash you first, that purple’s ruining your natural camouflage.’
*
The dwarf had morphed into a beetle. This was so he could be hidden in the frog’s mouth. The frog, as he hopped towards the fortress, was incredibly tempted to eat his friend. He had missed breakfast that day, and it had been a long, long day. The dwarf had such a nice flavour resting on his shell; the frog could just imagine him crunching sweetly…
Fortunately, the frog restrained himself; he concentrated upon hopping quietly as they entered the flower garden of the Ogre’s fortress. When they reached the foot of the green drainpipe, the frog croaked nervously before slipping inside.
The main banquet room was on the third floor, three floors from the top. This meant that the unlikely pair had to find their way out halfway. The dwarf morphed briefly into a knife, and the frog jammed him against the plastic wall until it began surrender and crack. When a crack had been made, the dwarf changed back into a beetle and hopped into the frog’s mouth. The frog slipped out through the crack and clambered onto the windowsill.
The dwarf could not have been more right. The frog saw them all through the ogre’s window. The Sinister Sorceress sat at one end of the long table, smiling down past the plates at the Pompous Prince. The Pompous Prince was at the head of the table. Yaks had settled into the biggest armchairs in the fortress, and they chatted happily with tigers, trumpeters, horn- players, buffalo, zebras, archers and chimps. The Smarmy Sidekick sat smirking beside the Pompous Prince.
‘What are we going to do about the Sinister Sorceress?’ croaked the frog.
‘Don’t worry,’ the whisper tingled inside the frogs’ mouth. ‘I’ve got it covered.’
The frog opened his mouth by an open window and the beetle crawled out. Having reached the floor, he suddenly morphed into a tall, middle aged man, who had kind, mysterious eyes and smiling lines around his mouth.
‘Harold?’ the Sinister Sorceress whispered, she raised her hands to her mouth and the dwarf thought he saw tears start to her eyes. ‘Harold, can it be? Oh is it? Is it really you?’
‘Yes, my dear, yes, it’s me.’
The Sinister Sorceress leapt up and threw tight, tender arms around the dwarf.
‘Who is this intruder?’ demanded the Pompous Prince.
‘This,’ said the Sorceress ‘is Harold, my Husband.’
The dwarf hugged the Sorceress for an appropriate amount of time before gently breaking free. Pacing up and down with purpose he began to speak.
‘Now,’ his tone was gentle and serious, ‘there is a reason , a reason why I’ve come back from the afterworld to this table today.’
‘Oh Harold, it was to see me, wasn’t it, because you love me.’ The dwarf allowed the sorceress an indulgent smile.
‘Yes, yes it was. But also, also there’s something more. There’s something I need to tell you all, something about your situation.’ The dwarf paused, because dwarfs always pause before saying something interesting, even when they are pretending not to be dwarfs. ‘Something about someone around this table.’ The dwarf gazed dreamily out of the window. ‘Something about the Pompous Prince.’
The panicking prince stood, ready to throw this intruder from the afterworld out of the window. But the Sinister Sorceress pushed him with a look that threw him back into his chair; her Harold would be allowed to speak.
‘He is an impostor,’ the dwarf announced. ‘He is not your prince at all. He is nothing but a tramp, a beggar, a fool and a liar.’ Looks of disbelief spread down the table, from the furry muzzles of the yaks to the cheeky faces of the chipmunks. Had the Sinister Sorceress not been there, laughter would have shaken the fortress walls.
‘You don’t believe me?’ asked the dwarf. ‘Look, I’ll show you.’
With that, he paced over to the framed photos that were hung upon the walls. Many were of the market square, taken at different times over the previous thirty years. As the dwarf pointed, the odd cast of characters could not help but admit that their prince did look very much like the tramp sat sadly on a ramp. As the dwarf explained the story, they saw that they had been fooled.
The tigers wanted to tear him to pieces, the buffalo wanted to barge him into the ground. To the tramp princes’ surprise, it was Harold that saved him.
‘There has been enough hurt already,’ said the Dwarf, ‘there has been enough bloodshed. What all of us, what all of us in the afterworld ask is that peace is returned to the Town of Flower Down, that they are allowed their rhymes , their culture , their way of life. They want peace with the Vulgar Valleys. They will respect you if you respect them.’
‘We used to be the Vision Valleys,’ said an archer sadly, ‘we used to be famous for our warm people and beautiful scenery. Before we spoiled ourselves with war. I thought this war would help the people. We were told they needed alliteration. We thought we were offering salvation. Now I see how wrong we were. There’s nothing wrong with rhyme,’ he smiled, ‘at least, some of the time.’
‘And now, my dear, I must go. It pains me, but I must’ the dwarf suddenly announced to the pleading sorceress, ‘I have done my work here. I will see you in the afterworld. Remember I love you. I always will.’ With that, he morphed back into a beetle, and crawled unnoticed towards the hiding frog.
*
When the people were released from the prisons the Sinister Sorceress said that it would mean the world to her if she was remembered as the Splendid Sorceress.
‘It’s a lot to ask, I know,’ she said.
But when she removed the fairy’s curse and paid for her to have an expensive haircut at the Crop Shop hairdresser’s she went some of the way. When she used her powers to prepare a marvellously magical banquet she went a lot further. The Cook with the Hook sat with a host of other characters as the food simply appeared on the tables, which had also just appeared. The Ogre who does Yoga sat at the head of the table. The Sorceress reassured him that the food had been conjured organically.
*
The Tramp on the Ramp was sitting sadly in his cell. Behind him, he heard the clink of cutlery. He turned his head morosely, expecting prison gruel or gloopy porridge. A platter of fine foods and a jug of wine greeted his eyes. And as he ate his spirits lifted. He was sorry for what he had done, truly sorry. But at least, he thought, he wasn’t homeless again, nothing could ever be worse than that.
Warm wine settled in his stomach. The glow of dreams rose inside of him. He wouldn’t be behind bars forever. He would have another shot at freedom.
As he sipped his wine, he smiled.
*
The whole table sat around satisfied. From the Ogre who does Yoga to the Frog on the Log. From Mary the Fairy to the (now) Splendid Sorceress. From the Yodelling Yaks to the Goat on the Moat. The Ogre stood up, looking a little embarrassed.
‘I’ve written a poem,’ he said, ‘if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to read it.’ Glasses were raised and clinked in approval.

‘I’m an Ogre who does Yoga
I can balance on my head
Long ago I lay down my sword
And turned to peace instead.

While we have no tanks or guns
Your forces are renowned
For your Acrobatic Archers
And your Yaks Yodelling sound.

So it came as no surprise
To be beaten in a day.
Locked in dirty, dingy cells,
We could only pray.

For my freedom I pay tribute
To our heroic pair
That frog and his friend the dwarf
Have bravery and flair.

How I miss my friend the Bull
Who now we cannot save
It’s tragic that this foolish farce
Has led him to the grave.

This Ogre bears no grudges;
Most of you meant no harm
And when you realised the truth
You were quick to disarm.


So now we can see hatred
As a forgotten phase
Why let such prejudice
Darken bright new days?

A new and thriving friendship
Between valley and town
That’s one prize that would make me
Proud to wear my crown. ’

‘I’m sorry,’ the ogre said, ‘it was just a silly little…I only wrote it just now… I’m a bit of an amateur.’
There was loud and enthusiastic applause. Glasses were clinked with merriment and appreciation. And everyone talked and drank and danced well into the night. For a long time afterwards, there was peace and happiness across the Vision Valleys.
This peace, this happiness, shone like sunrays on the Town of Flower Down.

Copyright: Joseph O'Neill 2005